The present invention is related to the field of computers; more specifically but not exclusively, the invention is related to the field of processing few frames in parallel for speeding overall processing duration.
Today, the media which is being produced by computers is increasing exponentially. The media which is being produced includes for example, videos, animations and other such combinations which are designed to “catch the eye” of the viewers, to arise intrigue, and as a result, to convey a message to the viewer or simply to draw his attention for gaining commercial value.
For this reason, displaying a static message such as an advertisement to a potential viewer will probably not suffice to draw the attention of the viewer as the static ad will not stand out compared to the other animated ads which are present near the static ad.
As the digital media gradually cuts out the traditional physical media, the demand for videos and animations exceeds with it. For instance, newspapers and books are being published digitally; in fact, specific hardware in the form of digital readers is being developed to ease the readers to consume more and more digital media and to enhance their experience when doing so. The digital newspapers and books are not mere replications of their physical versions; they often include animations and videos to better convey the messages for which they were edited. Such enhanced user experience is cross-bounding; users demand such experience even in their own digital media. For example, users want their; web-sites, digital albums, etc. to include such animations and videos. Business owners utilize this technology to generate banners, digital menus, and video clips to attract potential customers.
However, although producing such digital media is on demand, the production of such media has yet been adopted by the masses. The adoption of such digital media entails a few setbacks.
First, the processing power which is required to produce such digital media is considerable. The processing of a few frames is usually referred to by the art as “rendering”. The rendering which is required to produce a video or an animation is dependent on the length of the video (the number of frames) and on the resolution of the video (the weight of each frame). Because videos usually include twenty five frames per second and because a standard frame may consist of 640×480 pixels, producing a few seconds of animation may take about an hour of rendering time depending of the processors performing the rendering job. Not to mention, when the media rendered is long (a few hours) and the resolution is high (1024×768 or more) the rendering time may take a few hours even when utilizing state-of the art processors.
Second, producing animations requires skill. In order to produce animations one needs to use a software tool such as “Adobe After Effects”. The use of such software tools is not trivial to a layman. In addition, these software tools often charge a monthly fee or a licensing fee, making them out of reach for mass adoption.
In order to overcome the first setback described above, Adobe suggested the notion of utilizing a “Rendering Farm”;
http://help.adobe.com/en US/AfterEffects/9.0/WS3878526689cb91655866c1103a 4f2dff7-79a2a.html
A Rendering Farm uses multiple computers over the network to save rendering time. Some Rendering Farms work on a frame by frame basis. Meaning, a certain computer starts rendering a certain frame, if another computer is being indicated that the frame is already being rendered by the certain computer, and then the other computer simply starts rendering the next frame instead.
As for the second setback described above, some suggestions have been offered by the art in order to overcome it, here are a few examples:
US Patent Application US2010223128 to Dukellis, depicts templates that contain visual effects, synchronization information, and possibly director assistance. These templates are utilized by a second set of persons to generate personalized motion photo videos from photographs, video segments, personal narratives or animation.
World publication WO2008109233 to Estrop, depicts audiovisual works which can be automatically created based upon inferred and implicit metadata including music genre, image captions, song structure, image focal points, as well as user-supplied data such as text tags, emphasis flags, groupings, and preferred video style.